J. Marshall Bevil, Ph.D."A Paradigm of Folktune Preservation and Change
Within the Oral Tradition
of a Southern Appalachian Community, 1916-1986" Read at the 1987 National Convention of
the American Musicological Society, New Orleans

Madison
County, North Carolina typifies a mountain community in which the long residence of its
principal families and their frequent mergers through marriage are paralleled by, and
contribute to, the preservation and popularity of their songs. The present inquiry was
undertaken to test three hypotheses concerning folktune centonization. These were 1) that
at least in some regions the tendency toward change and loss is still countered by the
penchant for preservation; 2) that this preservation is primarily a communal act resulting
from and reciprocally assuring the sustained popularity of a melody among singers; and 3)
that tune preservation, which relies on awareness of scalar and melodic contour norms, has
been aided within individual communities by close familial and residential ties. The repertory
surveyed includes tunes collected by Cecil Sharp from 1916-1918, the author of the current
study (1986), and others during intervening years. Ninety-two variants from six melodic
sets served as controls and tests in 2,010computer-assisted comparisons.Illustrations include musical examples, select test results,
video displays of computer-generated contour graphs, and isogloss maps. The last device,
which is borrowed and adapted from descriptive linguistics, shows separated and
overlapping geographic areas within which particular types of melodic behavior have
occurred. Both
the analytical procedure used in this investigation and the supportive computer software
were developed by the present investigator in connection with hisdoctoral dissertation on folktune
centonization (University of North Texas, 1984 - see below), and they have
undergone continuous revision and refinement since the completion of that project.